Below: Joey Racano performing with a 3 piece band called the TIGERSHARKS LIVE!
Music Soothes the Savage Beast..............It seems to work for me, at least
Cover OC Weekly, Sept, 1998 photo by Mark Savage
I often had my dogs to thank for keeping me out of trouble during the days when trouble was easy. After years in an old A frame garage in the alley behind 5th street in Huntington, we moved into a rickety RV and took our show on the road. With two dogs and a crow to be responsible for, I never drove drunk and never accumulated tickets and warrants and such. My dogs kept me straight.
In much the same way, music was also my keeper. Many were the times when old friends would ask, "Remember the time we all got arrested at that bar, after the big brawl when such and such got hurt and..." Well, thankfully, the answer was always- "...nope, you weren't there anymore, always up in the room playing that guitar." And glad of it! I starved and I slaved, but I stayed out of trouble, and that guitar my stepfather hated so much was the reason why. I showed up at my mothers house one snowy winters New York afternoon and mean old 'Nicky' stopped me at the front door. "You can come in, but that thing stays out there!", he said in the thickest accent, pointing down at the 1979 - 1959 reissue Black Gibson Les Paul Custom with the one-piece body that I carried in an injection molded case. It had to sit on the 'stoop' (Brooklyn-ese for front porch) in 25 degree temperature. Ah, the good ol' days!
In much the same way, music was also my keeper. Many were the times when old friends would ask, "Remember the time we all got arrested at that bar, after the big brawl when such and such got hurt and..." Well, thankfully, the answer was always- "...nope, you weren't there anymore, always up in the room playing that guitar." And glad of it! I starved and I slaved, but I stayed out of trouble, and that guitar my stepfather hated so much was the reason why. I showed up at my mothers house one snowy winters New York afternoon and mean old 'Nicky' stopped me at the front door. "You can come in, but that thing stays out there!", he said in the thickest accent, pointing down at the 1979 - 1959 reissue Black Gibson Les Paul Custom with the one-piece body that I carried in an injection molded case. It had to sit on the 'stoop' (Brooklyn-ese for front porch) in 25 degree temperature. Ah, the good ol' days!
Above: 'World of War' -Wild Bird album Joe Racano (guit/voc)-Dave Blazer (trumpet)-Brad Cummings (bass)
Backstage, Pier Plaza photo by Mary Stampone
In June, 1998, I was invited to open the show and be the very first act ever to play at Pier Plaza at the Huntington Beach Pier. The system was gorgeous, owned by country singer Juice Newton, and I was so loud there were letters of complaint in the newspapers for weeks afterward! The recording available from this solo acoustic show was taken right off the board and it's very clean. The CD is 'LIVE at Pier Plaza'.
One of my local fans showed up to support me but made the oversight of carrying a 12 inch knife in his pants and during the middle of the show, you can hear me say, "See ya later, Cowboy" as security escorted him out of the Plaza and off to the slammer.
Huntington Beach TV 3 did a great video of this show, edited by the best in the business, Greg Furlong, of Orange County. It's on analog, but the City of Huntington Beach refuses to digitize it or allow me to have it digitized. They're still sore I cost them a few hundred million dollars to start cleaning up their sewage and to stop building condos on wetlands. Get over it, folks.
Note that beautiful guitar- made custom by Terry Scheffer (local HB luthier who also worked on Skylab!). That axe has now seen better days, but was constructed with an ebony fretboard, Sitka Spruce soundboard, the Hawaiian Koa body, California Buckeye Burl trim, herring bone and a fossilized walrus tusk bridge! The crow logo on the headstock is abalone and mother of pearl.
One of my local fans showed up to support me but made the oversight of carrying a 12 inch knife in his pants and during the middle of the show, you can hear me say, "See ya later, Cowboy" as security escorted him out of the Plaza and off to the slammer.
Huntington Beach TV 3 did a great video of this show, edited by the best in the business, Greg Furlong, of Orange County. It's on analog, but the City of Huntington Beach refuses to digitize it or allow me to have it digitized. They're still sore I cost them a few hundred million dollars to start cleaning up their sewage and to stop building condos on wetlands. Get over it, folks.
Note that beautiful guitar- made custom by Terry Scheffer (local HB luthier who also worked on Skylab!). That axe has now seen better days, but was constructed with an ebony fretboard, Sitka Spruce soundboard, the Hawaiian Koa body, California Buckeye Burl trim, herring bone and a fossilized walrus tusk bridge! The crow logo on the headstock is abalone and mother of pearl.
Jamming with the 'Berkeley Street Burners', 1990
on the corner of Haste and Telegraph avenue
Berkeley, California at 'People's Park', known as ground zero for the free speech movement. This is where the UC cops blinded a dude and 60,000 marched on Berkeley the following day. I lived in and around that storied park for a year with my dog, Misty. I had my share of run-ins with those cops. The city cops were cool, it was those UC cops who had a war on us po' folks. I used to get out there on that corner early on weekends when the Berkeley Street Burners would play, and set up my amps, with electricity courtesy of the Mexican restaurant across the way. We would run a cord for like, two hundred yards to the socket! I'd spend my morning figuring out just how far my guitar cord would go, then place a big silver duct tape X on the ground to mark the farthest points I could run to during guitar solos. We would jam in front of the famous Berkeley free speech mural, and the crowds got too big for the UC police to stop the band. :)
We would lay out an open guitar case and it would fill to overflow with money, bus transfers and LSD. We had a policy of letting the worst off, the drug addicts, and the real nutcases take what they needed. We were their heroes and they were our people. Remember, this was Berkeley in its prime, and the store and shop owners would arrive, make their way up to us through the crowd and lay grocery bags at our feet, filled with 40 ounce bottles of Saint Ides beer! We'd open them, guzzle them, and pass them into the crowd. And we would jam.
Believe it or not, I had a cassette player there one day and recorded a session like that! It's been digitally remastered, sounds like shit, and is not for sale. Unless you really want to do that to yourself. :) That was Rajoul behind me with the sax- a real cool cat and superb sax man. He's still jamming Union Square in San Francisco, I suppose.
The Bass player was a short muscle bound brother named Raven. Raven was a karate expert who knew all the Black Panthers, and we eventually were room mates at a house on 32nd Street in West Oakland (aka 'Dogtown'). Then came the Loma Prieta Earthquake, when the freeway fell -RIGHT NEXT TO OUR HOUSE. We were the last house on the block before the 880 Nimitz freeway, 1604 32nd St, and when the earthquake hit (5:04pm, Oct 17th 1989 how can I forget) Raven was the first one to climb up onto the collapsed freeway and start pulling people from their cars. That boy was never the same. I hate to say that because Raven was a huge hero. But he never let anyone thank him for it. He was too bitter over the racism that plagued him, day after day. I saw it all up close and personal. When people got out of the hospitals a year later, they came straight to ravens door but he never answered, he just sat inside in the dark, refusing the flowers and such they invariably brought him. Raven wound up on the covers of Time, Newsweek and something else.
One day, the music mogul giant Bill Graham called Raven and asked him what he would do if he won the lottery. It was obvious Bill wanted to help Raven and his band. Raven told him to go to hell. I asked Raven why we should turn him down, after all, we were pretty much starving in the gutter. But before I could change his mind, Graham's helicopter slammed into a high tension wire in Vallejo, killing Bill Graham, the chopper pilot, and that band's biggest opportunity. Soon thereafter, I left town and headed to Huntington Beach. The band stayed in Berkeley.
We would lay out an open guitar case and it would fill to overflow with money, bus transfers and LSD. We had a policy of letting the worst off, the drug addicts, and the real nutcases take what they needed. We were their heroes and they were our people. Remember, this was Berkeley in its prime, and the store and shop owners would arrive, make their way up to us through the crowd and lay grocery bags at our feet, filled with 40 ounce bottles of Saint Ides beer! We'd open them, guzzle them, and pass them into the crowd. And we would jam.
Believe it or not, I had a cassette player there one day and recorded a session like that! It's been digitally remastered, sounds like shit, and is not for sale. Unless you really want to do that to yourself. :) That was Rajoul behind me with the sax- a real cool cat and superb sax man. He's still jamming Union Square in San Francisco, I suppose.
The Bass player was a short muscle bound brother named Raven. Raven was a karate expert who knew all the Black Panthers, and we eventually were room mates at a house on 32nd Street in West Oakland (aka 'Dogtown'). Then came the Loma Prieta Earthquake, when the freeway fell -RIGHT NEXT TO OUR HOUSE. We were the last house on the block before the 880 Nimitz freeway, 1604 32nd St, and when the earthquake hit (5:04pm, Oct 17th 1989 how can I forget) Raven was the first one to climb up onto the collapsed freeway and start pulling people from their cars. That boy was never the same. I hate to say that because Raven was a huge hero. But he never let anyone thank him for it. He was too bitter over the racism that plagued him, day after day. I saw it all up close and personal. When people got out of the hospitals a year later, they came straight to ravens door but he never answered, he just sat inside in the dark, refusing the flowers and such they invariably brought him. Raven wound up on the covers of Time, Newsweek and something else.
One day, the music mogul giant Bill Graham called Raven and asked him what he would do if he won the lottery. It was obvious Bill wanted to help Raven and his band. Raven told him to go to hell. I asked Raven why we should turn him down, after all, we were pretty much starving in the gutter. But before I could change his mind, Graham's helicopter slammed into a high tension wire in Vallejo, killing Bill Graham, the chopper pilot, and that band's biggest opportunity. Soon thereafter, I left town and headed to Huntington Beach. The band stayed in Berkeley.
Berkeley, 1990, Joey Racano with 'Chicken George'
Chicken George was a street-ravaged local with a voice like a buzz saw, a sweet disposition, and a very bad drinking problem. He always wore a cape, walked with a cane, and seemed to be involved with voodoo somehow. He was always being arrested about 4:00am, after a night of growling his plaintive, forlorn and far away ramblings, none of which made sense except to him. In the end, I loved him like a brother. Pogo, on the other hand, was part of the next chapter, 'Down at Huntington Beach' (which is a killer rock song off Wild Bird and has been played at the US Open of surfing!). I wound up living in Huntington Beach for about 14 years, and my time there was every bit as rugged as up in Dogtown. But I really played hard there in 5th street alley, sold art out on Main Street -and finally got some breaks.
I became immersed in surf culture, really couldn't help it. I never surfed at all, but was approached by 5 time world champion Corky Carroll with a strange request- he wanted to do one of my songs on his 9th or tenth CD! Of course, I said 'hell yes!', and he wound up calling me about two weeks later, when it was time. He said that he wanted to do a song off my 'Bluejay' CD (which was recorded during 4 full moons in 2001, all-acoustic with no overdubs). The name of the song is 'Little Bit 'o Rhythm', second song in.
Well, he called and said that although he could learn the riffs, he wanted to have me come lay down the guitar track in order to save him some time. He invited me to his home studio, -really cool place- and he paid me a hundred bux! I laid down the track in one take, perfect. So, he handed me the cashola, and I said I'd be willing to spit out a second track for stereo. He said, 'do it'. Another first take. I was on it that day. That recording he did is on his 10th CD called 'Visions of Paradise.' Last song on the album.
I became immersed in surf culture, really couldn't help it. I never surfed at all, but was approached by 5 time world champion Corky Carroll with a strange request- he wanted to do one of my songs on his 9th or tenth CD! Of course, I said 'hell yes!', and he wound up calling me about two weeks later, when it was time. He said that he wanted to do a song off my 'Bluejay' CD (which was recorded during 4 full moons in 2001, all-acoustic with no overdubs). The name of the song is 'Little Bit 'o Rhythm', second song in.
Well, he called and said that although he could learn the riffs, he wanted to have me come lay down the guitar track in order to save him some time. He invited me to his home studio, -really cool place- and he paid me a hundred bux! I laid down the track in one take, perfect. So, he handed me the cashola, and I said I'd be willing to spit out a second track for stereo. He said, 'do it'. Another first take. I was on it that day. That recording he did is on his 10th CD called 'Visions of Paradise.' Last song on the album.
Portrait of Joey on a Berkeley corner, by 'POGO'
Pogo was a fellow artist I met out on Main Street in Huntington Beach. We used to hang together at the old library on Main Street, where I sat at their computer 1 hour a day and wrote my first book, 'An Activist's Almanac.' That book and others are available on www.scribd.com. Pogo reminded me of Picasso, and he had some talent. We wound up looking out for each other, and eventually cut our forearms and became blood brothers. He drew the above drawing of me from a long-lost picture some photography student snapped of me at UC Berkeley.
Joey jams Berkeley with 'Fusion' on Bongos, 1990
Down at Huntington Beach
New York to Florida to San Francisco, Berkeley and then to Huntington Beach. I arrived in Huntington Beach and was on stage the same night for a 'blues jam' at Night Moves, hosted by a guy named Ronnie Sax. That couldn't have been his name, but really, do you trust Joe Montana? Tony yes, Joe, no. Below is a photo of the first of two incarnations of the Tigersharks. Both incarnations featured Gary Geiser on bass. The first sported a very solid drummer named Jeff Davison (1991). When we got to cookin', it was always like driving a car, a real smooth ride. We often smiled on stage and pretended to hold a steering wheel.
The second Tigersharks (1994), is the 1994 band who played the live cuts on my From Brooklyn with Blues compilation CD. I also have some excellent digitally remastered live recordings of the 1991 band of shows we did all around Orange, Long beach and L.A. Counties. Below, we are performing at a club in Garden Grove, California that was called the 'Marquee', where they were mostly glam-rock. Too bad, really, because we really smoked and it kind of went right over their shiny long blue-black colored hair heads.
The second Tigersharks (1994), is the 1994 band who played the live cuts on my From Brooklyn with Blues compilation CD. I also have some excellent digitally remastered live recordings of the 1991 band of shows we did all around Orange, Long beach and L.A. Counties. Below, we are performing at a club in Garden Grove, California that was called the 'Marquee', where they were mostly glam-rock. Too bad, really, because we really smoked and it kind of went right over their shiny long blue-black colored hair heads.
At the Marquee Theater, Garden Grove, Calif 1991
I guess I could go on and on about living with crows (https://www.facebook.com/crowkungfu/) and fighting with tweekers and barely feeding myself and dogs, but suffice it to say I played the blues and paid the dues. And I was angry too, about what I saw happening around me. No one individual ever gave so many people who were so evil so much trouble. And I met great people too. One of those was Ken King, a guy who was a brilliant well-read scholar of history, but also taught me the value of things Americana. Especially as pertained to folk music, folk culture and blues. Ken went to work as a trucker for an outfit called Covenant Transport, driving around the nation, all the while writing songs that would be fit for Hank Williams jr.
One trip, he sent me a postcard from every other city, a new verse on each, until we had an entire song called 'Line Hauler's Blues.' Secretly, I worked hard to create what I thought was the right music behind his great lyrics. When he came home for Christmas, 1998, I played it for him at a little party at a friends house. Ken went to work driving for a cab company out of Newport Beach, telling me to read a book called the 'Razor's Edge', and then I would know why he drove a cab. In the end, I guess the message was, that he wanted to meet and talk to random people, salt of the Earth. My friend Ken King was killed by a drunk driver in a BMW who crossed the center line. I had just toured radio stations up in Northern California, immersed in music and also in the fight to save the last California giant redwoods. We talked on the phone when I got back to Huntington Beach, but the next time I called, I couldn't reach him. In the next morning's paper, I saw a picture of an emergency crew peeling the roof off a taxi with 1 800 4 my taxi on it, Ken's company. I called and they gave me the bad news.
I recorded a version of Line Hauler's Blues in 2001, on the Bluejay CD. He would have liked it.
One trip, he sent me a postcard from every other city, a new verse on each, until we had an entire song called 'Line Hauler's Blues.' Secretly, I worked hard to create what I thought was the right music behind his great lyrics. When he came home for Christmas, 1998, I played it for him at a little party at a friends house. Ken went to work driving for a cab company out of Newport Beach, telling me to read a book called the 'Razor's Edge', and then I would know why he drove a cab. In the end, I guess the message was, that he wanted to meet and talk to random people, salt of the Earth. My friend Ken King was killed by a drunk driver in a BMW who crossed the center line. I had just toured radio stations up in Northern California, immersed in music and also in the fight to save the last California giant redwoods. We talked on the phone when I got back to Huntington Beach, but the next time I called, I couldn't reach him. In the next morning's paper, I saw a picture of an emergency crew peeling the roof off a taxi with 1 800 4 my taxi on it, Ken's company. I called and they gave me the bad news.
I recorded a version of Line Hauler's Blues in 2001, on the Bluejay CD. He would have liked it.
Working at Taxi Guitar Shop, Main st. HB, Ca. 1993
Joey Racano opening for Bonnie Raitt at the Sept 21st 1996 'Concert for the Bolsa Chica' on Bolsa Chica State Beach Geoffrey Kagy photo
Joey Racano and 'ICE' LIVE! at Edison College, Fort Meyers, Florida 3-3-84
Check out more archival footage from 'back in the day'...
Very little remains of the distant past; the girls, the guitars, family- even the master tapes from 4 years in Sound Check Recording Studio, Fort Meyers, Florida! They just threw them away, and believe me, they were worth keeping. I had a mind to turn them into WAV files and re-do them, resurrect them entirely! But as fate and Jim Becker would have it, the only thing that remains are the very rough mixdowns on cassette tapes I dragged around with me during 20 years on the street. Some of which are on the 'From Brooklyn with Blues' CD.
But then, there is this VHS I dug out, that has been remastered to DVD, now that the technology is here. Thanks, COSTCO! This was a different age, when I was immersed in rock, whammy bars, and women. And I do not recommend drugs so let's steer clear of them. :/
This was the second incarnation of the band ICE, with Monster Mike Sciarrino playing drums for both, and Chuck Ugalde the bass man who came to Florida from New York with me originally, and later, we joined with Ken Wells. This is Ken on Bass, Mike on drums and me on guit/vocs. The song is 'Electric Throne', the title cut of the first, awesome, and very ill fated recording project I ever did in a professional setting. We were jamming locally at Gator Lanes Lounge, a converted bowling alley-to nightclub, running wild with Paul Chapman from the band UFO. when we were asked to play this gig at the college. I have a few snips of video from the show- here's ICE playing 'Electric Throne'. March, 1984!
Joey Racano...........................................................Guitar & Ld Vocals
Ken Wells..............................................................Bass and Bk Vocals
Monster Mike Sciarrino.....................................Drums and Purcussion
And here's 'License to Kill...'
But then, there is this VHS I dug out, that has been remastered to DVD, now that the technology is here. Thanks, COSTCO! This was a different age, when I was immersed in rock, whammy bars, and women. And I do not recommend drugs so let's steer clear of them. :/
This was the second incarnation of the band ICE, with Monster Mike Sciarrino playing drums for both, and Chuck Ugalde the bass man who came to Florida from New York with me originally, and later, we joined with Ken Wells. This is Ken on Bass, Mike on drums and me on guit/vocs. The song is 'Electric Throne', the title cut of the first, awesome, and very ill fated recording project I ever did in a professional setting. We were jamming locally at Gator Lanes Lounge, a converted bowling alley-to nightclub, running wild with Paul Chapman from the band UFO. when we were asked to play this gig at the college. I have a few snips of video from the show- here's ICE playing 'Electric Throne'. March, 1984!
Joey Racano...........................................................Guitar & Ld Vocals
Ken Wells..............................................................Bass and Bk Vocals
Monster Mike Sciarrino.....................................Drums and Purcussion
And here's 'License to Kill...'
Below: Warehouse #9 (Original practice space of ICE, 1983 Fort Myers, Florida
photo: SC Douglas
photo: SC Douglas
